Assessing fetal lung maturity

摘要

A method for assessing whether the lungs of a fetus are mature comprising obtaining a sample of the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus and determining the presence or absence of phosphatidyl glycerol in the sample. The presence of phosphatidyl glycerol indicates that the fetus lungs are mature, and the absence indicates that the fetus lungs are not mature. More particularly, in one embodiment of the present invention, the presence of phosphatidyl glycerol is determined by adding phospholipase C to the amniotic fluid to convert the phosphatidyl glycerol to glycerol-3-phosphate. Then adding glycerol-3-phosphate oxidase to convert the glyerol-3-phosphate to dihydroxyacetone phosphate and hydrogen peroxide and then reacting the hydrogen peroxide with a substrate and peroxidase to form a visually detectable reaction product.